Till 1997, the last thing on Chirag Mehta's mind was an Internet-related business.

That year, Mehta, along with a childhood friend Hemal Patel, visited Bangalore. There they learnt that the government was considering privatising the Internet service provider business.

Excited by what he thought was a great business opportunity, Mehta flew to the United States to study how ISPs functioned there. He came back a year later, and started Icenet in late 1998 with just five people on rolls.

Today, with dedicated fibre optic cable networks, digital modems, a fully automated helpdesk and a user-to-lines ratio conforming to global standards, Icenet, India's first private sector Internet service provider, stands out in a pool of 25 ISPs in Gujarat.

It was not easy at all. Mehta went back to being a student, researching and learning the fundamentals of information technology and internetworking.

He went into the intricacies of wide area networking design, spending as much as 19 hours a day.

This, combined with his electronics engineering background, helped him imbibe the nuances of the ISP business well. He said he became adept in six months.

It was a major switch in life, for the family business -- the Elemech Group -- was manufacturing electric and electronic control panels.